In today's industries, there is a tremendous need for sensor guided robots for material handling and assembly. The first step in any assembly task is to acquire a part from a bin or pallet or other source of supply. Strategies are needed for automating this parts-acquisition process using industrial robots. Providing vision and tactile sensing to a robot can aid in object recognition, in-transit inspection, and increase the handling or assembly speed by eliminating the need for blind search. The alternative to vision is inflexible, often expensive fixturing, which is at odds with the fundamental justification for a robot, namely its programmability. This is especially important in batch manufacturing environments, where a robot can easily be adapted to accommodate batch to batch variations in shapes and sizes of the product. Over 70% of the products manufactured in the U.S. are produced in batches. The ultimate in robot flexibility and one with the least amount of fixturing incorporates visual and tactile sensing to remove unoriented objects from a bin.
The following U.S. patents provide additional background information: U.S. Pat. No. 3,804,270, issued on Apr. 16, 1974 to J. A. Michaud et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,305,130, issued on Dec. 8, 1981 to R. B. Kelley, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,344,146, issued on Aug. 10, 1982 to R. E. Davis, Jr., et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 4,402,053, issued on Aug. 30, 1983, to Robert B. Kelley, et al.